Clever Ways to Increase Mobile App Reviews

The opinion of others (friends, family, product reviewers) matter, whether it is about restaurants, movies or apps. As hundreds of new apps hit the market every day, opinions and reviews affect how visible they will be in search results and how likely they will be featured on the app store. App reviews don’t just happen by themselves—especially the positive ones (people tend to leave a negative review if they are unhappy).

According to Steve P. Young, a marketing consultant and host of the Mobile App Chat podcast, if you’re launching a new app, the following are things you can do to help get more positive app reviews:

Use an app review plugin: The quickest and easiest way to get an app review is to ask. There are a number of plugins available on iOS and Android that makes it simple to integrate app review functionality into your apps. Appirater is an iOS plugin that takes two minutes to drop into your app and asks users for review after they have used it for certain number of times or after a set time period. Avoid asking for a review too soon.

Incentivize users to review your app: The truth is, most people do not like popups. An easy way to get people to give you feedback and rate your app is to reward those users who choose to review. People like free stuff, so the probability of someone taking time to review your app will soar if they know they will get something in return. For games, this could mean extra points, or a bonus level.

Leverage Helpshift to provide direct support to your users: Providing exceptional customer service is the first step to getting good reviews. One way to do this is to include a “Send Feedback” button that opens an email form. An easy way to do this is by integrating Helpshift into your app so that you can communicate with your users via instant messaging window. This way, users can give negative feedback to a member of your customer support team and get answers in real time, rather than airing out frustrations in the form of a negative review.

Time the prompt: Don’t be in a hurry to get user reviews. Asking for a review when someone launches your app may not be the best idea—this interrupts normal app activity. A better strategy would be to wait for user to accomplish something or finish his/her intended task. This works in your favor to ask for review when user is happy about using your app.

Run a contest: Another way to increase app reviews is to run a contest on various forums. The popular blog Touch Arcade has a section where app developers run contests and giveaways to entice other members to leave reviews for their apps. You can giveaway goodies like iTunes Gift Card, or you can PayPal the winner. Running the contest requires you to manually manage the entire process but it can help you jumpstart the reviews and ratings.

These are few of the ways to help you get more reviews. Feel free to comment what is your strategy and what does or does not work for you. If you’re not in the app game, let us know if you tend to review apps. Do you find yourself more likely to review when you open the app? Do incentives help prompt a response?